Accord forged between the Koreas
SEOUL, South Korea — The Koreas on Tuesday once again proved their mastery at pulling back from the brink — this time with an accord forged in two marathon negotiating sessions over three days.
Authoritarian North Korea previously refused to even admit to, let alone apologize for, Seoul’s accusation that North Korean land mines maimed two South Koreans. Yet the rivals found a way to save face and avert the war they’ve been threatening, but avoiding, since the real fighting in the Korean War ended with a cease-fire in 1953.
In an artfully crafted statement, Pyongyang provides a vague expression of “regret” about the blasts that allows Seoul to say it forced an apology. Seoul agrees to stop anti-Pyongyang propaganda broadcasts, which gives the North a win it can trumpet at home.
State Department spokesman John Kirby said the U.S. was hopeful the agreement would decrease the tensions on the Korean Peninsula.
Train heroes receive France’s highest honor
PARIS — The gunman had an arsenal that he claims to have stumbled upon in a park near the train station. Like three other men accused of drawing up failed plans for attacks in France recently, the suspect denied any links to terrorism, telling his lawyer he was homeless and only wanted to rob a train “to eat.”
Instead, the assault rifle jammed, and he was tackled and bound with a necktie by three Americans and a Briton who were celebrated Monday with France’s highest honor. Now, with many lives potentially saved on the high-speed train by quick-thinking and courageous passengers, the limits of a continent’s worth of security were thrown into relief by a lone attacker during a less-sophisticated act of violence.
With thousands of Europeans believed to be radicalized by propaganda from the Islamic State group, and legions of security forces guarding the most visible targets, governments are increasingly worried about the possibility of carnage by individuals, with little planning, in a setting where there is minimal or no security.
Tax procrastinators urged to file now to avoid loss of health care subsidies; backstop readied
WASHINGTON — Sign-up season for President Barack Obama’s health care law doesn’t start for another couple of months, but the next few days are crucial for hundreds of thousands of customers at risk of losing financial aid when they renew coverage for 2016.
Call them tardy tax filers: an estimated 1.8 million households that got subsidies for their premiums last year but failed to file a 2014 tax return as required by the law, or left out key IRS paperwork.
Because of coordination issues between the IRS and marketplaces like HealthCare.gov, consumers who keep procrastinating into the fall are taking chances with their financial aid, according to insurers and the tax agency. That means, for example, that someone who’s been paying a monthly premium of $90 could suddenly get hit with a bill for $360.
Government officials say they have a backstop planned that should help many procrastinators. Nonetheless, insurers and advocacy groups say they’ve been told the best way returning customers can avoid hassles is to file their taxes correctly by Aug. 31.
Judge defends Colorado theater killer’s trial, jury after victim’s mom denounces life sentence
CENTENNIAL, Colo. (AP) — The judge who oversaw Colorado theater shooter James Holmes’ trial gave an impassioned defense of the jury and the process Monday after the mother of one of the wounded said Holmes’ life sentence showed more concern for Holmes than for the victims.
“You can’t claim there was no justice because it wasn’t the outcome you expected,” Judge Carlos A. Samour Jr. said in an unusual speech from the bench during Holmes’ formal sentencing hearing for the 2012 attack.
Samour said the jury was fair and impartial and that he tried his utmost to be the same.
“And that’s how you know it was justice,” he said.
Samour spoke after Kathleen Pourciau testified that her daughter, Bonnie Kate Pourciau, suffers constant, excruciating pain and terrible nightmares from the gunshot wounds she suffered at Holmes’ hand.
Protesters in Lebanon want to junk politicians
BEIRUT — It took a garbage crisis for Lebanon to finally snap.
Anger about the heaps of trash accumulating in Beirut’s streets boiled over this week with thousands protesting in the street against a government so dysfunctional it can’t hold elections or pick a president, much less deliver basic services.
While surviving the Arab Spring and neighboring Syria’s civil war relatively unscathed, tiny Lebanon could find itself plunging into renewed chaos if further violence tears across the capital. And its politicians, many of them warlords from the country’s own brutal 15-year civil war, may be sweating through the end of this long, hot Arab summer.
“It shows the Lebanese society to some extent catching up with the rest of the Arab world in terms of popular protests against the central government,” said Rami Khouri, a senior fellow at the Issam Fares Institute at the American University of Beirut.
In many ways, Lebanon never got over its civil war, which raged from 1975 until 1990. Some of the country’s aging warlords passed on their power to their sons and relatives. Consecutive governments neglected to improve the country’s infrastructure, leading to chronic water shortages and electricity cuts even now, 25 years after the war ended.
By wire sources